


picking up the pieces

by inosgf



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, glimmer-centric, it’s got a happy ending, minor scorptra, no beta we die like men, the glimmadora isn’t a huge focal point but it’s there, written after s3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 18:37:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20086882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inosgf/pseuds/inosgf
Summary: Angella’s sacrifice shook Glimmer to her core. Now it’s time for her to pick up the pieces.





	picking up the pieces

**Author's Note:**

> some of the stuff towards the end is pure theory/me doing what i want so yeehaw ig

Glimmer woke up to the shimmering glow of the Moonstone, her eyes watering at its intensity. She felt numb. She knew her powers had recharged as they always had, but the comforting force of her mother’s connection with the Moonstone had vanished. For the first time since her birth, the smooth oval that served as the source of her powers seemed unfamiliar and distant.

She sat up with a groan, the recharge having done little to help her sore muscles. The other princesses were gone, and Glimmer vaguely remembered sending them home with the excuse of needing to rest. She didn’t know what had been done with Shadow Weaver, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

At this point, the kingdom would have been informed of the Queen’s sacrifice and the most logical response would be to crown the princess. Even if she wasn’t the most popular with her people, Glimmer had to step up at some point.

She wondered how they would react if they found out she had been the one to get her killed. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, she thought darkly, shaking her head to dislodge the wetness gathering in the corners of her eyes. She didn’t have time to grieve. Her people needed the princess, not the sniveling child.

With another grunt, Glimmer forced herself to stand and made the way down the stairs with a heavy heart. She couldn’t find it in herself to teleport.

* * *

The funeral was quick. There was nothing to bury, nothing to say. Angella died a hero, her sacrifice would be remembered forever. Perfuma tried creating one of her plant sculptures for her, but the face looked wrong. She thanked her anyway.

The statue was full of life, yet it made Glimmer feel nothing but hollow.

* * *

The coronation was more of a hassle than it was worth. Nobles came from all over Etheria to offer their condolences. The other princesses came too, but they hung back from the fanfare.

Frosta tried to lift her bad mood by giving her pointers on ruling as a kid, but she trailed off when she realized Glimmer’s mind was elsewhere.

Glimmer could tell Adora and Bow were trying to be happy for her, but all three of them knew deep down that something had changed.

Queen Glimmer was strange to hear, even more so when she heard it so many times in a row. Of course, the other princesses had to call her by her formal title now that she ranked above them, but when they retired to the Alliance meeting room they treated her as they always did, or at least they tried.

Everyone was walking on eggshells around her. The only ones that were good at hiding it were Adora and Bow.

“Long live the queen!”

* * *

After a week, It became apparent that she was not ready to be queen. Her mother had mentioned nothing about the crushing responsibility that ruling a kingdom had to offer, but it made sense that she hadn’t. She always wanted her daughter to see her as brave.

The mural was erected on the wall opposite to her father’s. It depicted Angella‘s last moments, gripping the sword with steel in her eyes and her wings spread in all their glory. Bow designed it.

* * *

Adora had been training her how to fight, but it was slow work. She was always too impulsive, too easy to provoke, too reliant on her powers.

Glimmer enjoyed the feeling of the sparring, though. Adora had been taught to fight with a staff and those lessons were her favorites. They helped her take her mind off of the irritating nobles who thought her too young to rule. They were right, but she could see through their attempted manipulations.

Adora and Bow were a great comfort during this. She was grateful that, unlike everyone else in the castle, they never mentioned Queen Angella unless prompted, unlike certain other residents of the Castle Bright Moon. She loved her aunt, but Castaspella had been staying at the castle since the portal’s failure under the guise of keeping Shadow Weaver in check and had done nothing but lament her mother’s death. Glimmer couldn’t tell if she was staying for Glimmer’s sake or her own, though it was nice to see that although Castaspella never agreed with Angella, she did care for her.

* * *

She had her tattoo finished. There was now a figure in between the wings, an angel, holding the Sword of Protection. At first glance it appeared as She-Ra, but a close observer would notice that the angel had pink skin.

* * *

Scorpia joined them not long after the mural was unveiled. She appeared in Bright Moon with a heavily injured Entrapta and a plea for She-Ra’s help.

Shadow Weaver occupied the only spare room, so Adora offered to bunk with Glimmer and gave up her room.

Sleeping next to Adora was more stressful than Glimmer thought possible. Adora liked to cuddle things in her sleep, and Glimmer, who had never shared a bed with anybody, didn’t know how to approach this. Also, Adora slept with a knife under her pillow and Glimmer had woken up with a bleeding thumb and a panicked Adora one too many times for her liking.

When Glimmer finally did ask Adora about her cuddling a month after it started, however, it appeared that she simply liked the feeling of comfort it brought, which sounded reasonable enough. Or at least that’s what she told Adora, not wanting to admit the embarrassing truth that waking up in Adora’s arms had calmed her down from her nightmares more times than she cared to count.

* * *

George and Lance loved Bright Moon. Bow had brought them for a weeklong visit three weeks ago and they still showed no signs of wanting to leave, much to Bow’s chagrin. Glimmer, finding their presence unorthodox but sorely needed, had shown them to the castle library on their first day and they had hardly left since. Bow’s squawk of horror when they started piling books in the floor “to read later” had left Glimmer struggling to maintain her composure, smiling at him innocently.

With their arrival and increasing presence around the castle, Bow spent more and more time in the Whispering Woods, often taking Scorpia with him to explore. When Glimmer questioned the relative safety of going alone into the Woods with a former Horde captain, he explained that the only bad thing about her was a broken heart.

Glimmer joined them sometimes. The forest was serene, even if the vines moved with nothing touching them and the trees spoke to each other. The forest watched her as everyone else did, but it viewed her the same as every other creature in it. Small and insignificant.

* * *

After George and Lance left, Castaspella visited the castle with the news of Shadow Weaver’s punishment, having finally finished her trial on Mystacor. It had been delayed after the coronation due to Glimmer begging her aunt to let Micah’s mentor teach her the mystic arts, and Castaspella couldn’t deny the only request of her recently orphaned niece.

Shadow Weaver’s training was brutal to endure, mostly due to Glimmer’s stubbornness and their deadline of three weeks. Castaspella overlooked every training session, and after a while Glimmer came to understand that it was because she didn’t want to lose her last living relative.

It didn’t surprise Glimmer that Shadow Weaver had been stripped of her magic, but it did surprise her that Shadow Weaver had been allowed to return to Bright Moon to finalize her training. Glimmer may not have been her father, but she was at least qualified enough to receive training from Castaspella.

Shadow Weaver started training Adora as well as Light Hope, and when Adora brought her to the Beacon so they could “swap notes,” Light Hope shut down and refused to appear while Shadow Weaver remained present. Bow thought that it was an appropriate response when Adora was ranting later that night, seeing as Shadow Weaver was the source of many of Adora’s worst memories. Glimmer agreed.

* * *

Being queen had its perks. Glimmer didn’t have to eat meals with the rest of the castle and instead ate in a separate room entirely. She could leave whenever she wanted and didn’t have to answer questions she didn’t feel like answering. She could sleep in, but rarely got the chance due to Adora waking up every morning at five a.m. sharp to begin her workouts. But she adjusted to those.

Bow slept over sometimes, but they were growing fast and three young adults were hard to cram into a bed made for one. The close quarters were a relief, though, when the battles had been too close for comfort or the nightmares too strong to sleep away.

She didn’t sneak out much, there was never any reason to, but sometimes late at night, she and Adora would teleport to the roof and look out at the lights of Bright Moon. Adora said once that they looked like stars, and although Glimmer had never seen stars in the sky, she smiled along with her.

It was on one of those nights that Adora first kissed her. She had let her long hair down for once and Glimmer hadn’t been able to stop staring. She-Ra may be the way she used to see her, but she finds she much prefers Adora. It was difficult to explain to the guards, however, had seen two balls of glittery light on the roof above the Queen’s window at two in the morning. She rarely lost control of her powers after Shadow Weaver’s training, but she made exceptions for Adora.

* * *

Scorpia’s warnings of Catra’s fierce attacks on allied villages quickly spoiled her and Adora’s breakfast in bed, however, as Adora left with Bow and Netossa to stifle the threat. Glimmer would have gone with them, but she had an urgent council meeting that had already been delayed long enough. Adora kissed her goodbye, and Glimmer pressed their foreheads together for a beat before pulling away and wishing them good luck, trying to ignore the dread gnawing at her.

When they return with Adora unconscious and deep scratches on her jaw and back, Glimmer decides she hates Catra. When Adora comes to in the infirmary later, she wipes away Glimmer’s tears and smiles sadly.

Later when Glimmer’s taken them back to the roof, Adora tells her that Catra is well and truly lost. Adora couldn’t find excuses to hold back when she fought her anymore. Glimmer had known Catra couldn’t be retrieved for a long while, but she kept silent. When Adora started crying, Glimmer wrapped her arms around her and held her until she fell asleep.

* * *

The battle against the Horde Prime had been devastating in every way. Adora was still grappling with the knowledge of her family outside of Etheria and Catra’s sacrifice, and Glimmer was still struggling to comprehend the return and subsequent loss of King Micah, although Catra sacrificing herself to collapse the Prime’s portal did come as a close second in “most shocking events of the year.”

Scorpia hadn’t spoken to anyone for days. Glimmer knew she blamed herself for not being able to save Catra; she had done the same when Angella died. But she knew it was different this time. Catra had only openly acknowledged that she cared for Scorpia in the moment before she vanished, Angella had told Glimmer she loved her since the day she was born. Scorpia had cried for hours. Adora cried with her.

Bright Moon was still picking up the pieces a month after the battle. It was still weird to see the stars in what was once an empty sky. It was weirder still that the wings she had magicked onto herself during the fight would reappear randomly without her prompting, but she didn’t know how to dissolve the spell. It made her feel closer to Angella, though. To be able to soar through the sky, even if the wings were only temporary.

Glimmer didn’t know when Adora decided to get a tattoo, but when she revealed the small image of a familiar red headpiece to Scorpia, she started a fresh round of tears for the two of them.

* * *

Queen Glimmer looked out over the royal gardens, her gaze sweeping over the new statues that served as memorials to the Princess Alliance and the final battle to save Etheria. Each of them had been decorated by offerings from the citizens of Etheria, although the most grand of them came from the surviving princesses.

Glimmer spread her wings and took off, her eyes wondering until they landed on a copse of trees that stood separated from the rest. She let out a sigh and lazily spiraled down until she landed on the edge of a clearing.

The trees here were tall, but to Glimmer’s back they thinned over a sharp cliff that overlooked the Whispering Woods and beyond, the former Crimson Waste. In the middle of the clearing was another statue, this one barren of offerings save for an old leather jacket and a whip. Adora stood up from her place leaning against its base when Glimmer landed, and she cast a final look over the landscape before walking over to Glimmer, her step lighter than it had been in weeks. She and Scorpia had bickered over where to place the memorial for days before Bow pointed out the clearing. Kyle and her girlfriend had already visited, evident by the presence of the offerings, and Scorpia had been there when it was first placed, an event Adora hadn’t been able to witness due to her already agreeing to help George and Lance move into their new house.

Glimmer had been sent to retrieve Adora for dinner, which she and Frosta had planned specially for the three-month anniversary of the Horde’s defeat. Bow had tried to explain that three-month anniversaries weren’t a thing, and neither were two-month anniversaries, but Frosta didn’t care and Glimmer was only too happy to agree with her.

Adora jumped into her arms without warning and laughed as Glimmer struggled to keep her aloft, giving her an exasperated look as she took to the air. Adora liked flying even more than Glimmer did.

Glimmer took the scenic route, knowing Adora wouldn’t care and made the mistake of watching the joy on her face rather than the relative proximity of the castle spires. When she teleported them inside however, Adora was laughing, and she couldn’t help but laugh along with her. Frosta was none too pleased with their tardiness and berated them for not arriving in time to make the pastries that Entrapta was so fond of, sparking another round of giggles.

The dinner was excellent, Sea Hawk being a surprisingly good cook, and everyone present was in high spirits, the table of war heroes joking around and bickering as usual. As if nothing could dim their spirit. Glimmer felt her heart swell as she watched the scene from her position at head of the table, and Adora nudged her from her right, whispering an observation into her ear that made her snicker and pay closer attention to Mermista and Sea Hawk, who were seated next to each other. It came to no one’s surprise when they snuck out later, and Glimmer snorted when Bow groaned and passed some money to Adora.

Everything was okay.

**Author's Note:**

> uhh i haven’t written anything in like years but i had a lot of emotions after s3 and i was bored


End file.
